Nuts-n-dolts

Jay Dyer has issued his limp closing statement in the debate with Josh Brisby:

http://www.nicenetruth.com/home/2008/04/debate-pt-8-jay.html

“I chose to focus on the question of the canon and sola scriptura because it is an area I’ve done quite a bit of reading on.”

Has he now? Then why does he always trot out the same two or three writers? A quote from Bruce. A quote from McDonald. A quote from Johnson.

“It was this central question that led me out of Protestantism, as I came to the conclusion several years ago that the sola scriptura principle and its corollary, the Protestant canon, could not be substantiated with honest scrutiny.”

Dyer’s evasive behavior is hardly distinguished by its “honest scrutiny.”

“Josh has admittedly not done a lot of research in this area.”

If so, that would put him on a par with Dyer.

(Even in that event, Brisby still has the compensatory virtues of a far superior belief-system.)

“Unfortunately, I believe that much of what I wrote and linked in response was glossed over and ignored in a hurried attempt to respond.”

Oh, you mean the same way Dyer ignored, glossed over, and hurried past much of what I wrote?

“Also note that over and over I cite top-notch Protestant scholars who will admit my very arguments.”

Not all of the scholars he quotes are “top-notch scholars.” And when he does quote a top-notch scholar like Bruce, he quotes him very selectively. Bruce did not endorse his position on the Alexandrian canon. Just the opposite.

“Where does he think the LXX came from? Gentiles? No, it came from diaspora Jews.”

Which poses a dilemma for Dyer since he’s arbitrarily selective about what Jewish testimony he credits.

“Palestinian Jews rejected the DB, but the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the OT composed in the 2nd-3rd century B.C. at Alexandria, Egypt by 70 or 72 Jewish scribes, was used by non-Palestinian Jews. It is a well known fact that the Septuagint (LXX) was both the Bible of the diaspora Jews and the Bible of all the early Christians, as will be proven below. Further, it’s also a fact that the LXX contained the DB, as will also be proven below. Protestant scholars admit the LXX was the bible of the diaspora Jews who were far more numerous at the time of Christ than Palestinian Jews.”

Two problems:

i) Dyer continues to peddle his bait-and-switch tactic over the identity of the LXX, as if the LXX is uniform throughout its variegated history. But as Emanuel Tov has noted,

“The name ‘Septuagint’ denotes both the first Greek translation of the Bible and the collection of Jewish-Greek Scripture, containing inter alia this translation. The latter usage is imprecise because this collection contains also late revisions of the original translation and books that were originally written in Greek. In order to distinguish between the two usages of the word, the collection of Jewish-Greek Scripture is generally called the ‘Septuagint,’ while the first translation of the Bible is often named ‘the Old Greek (translation),” M. Mulder & H. Sysling, eds., Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading & Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism & Early Christianity (Hendrickson 2004), 161.

Dyer has been repeatedly corrected on his erroneous conflation of two distinct issues, but he’s a chronic liar.

ii) Dyer acts as though, if he can cite some Protestant, any Protestant, then that automatically disproves our position. But Protestant scholars aren’t authority-figures in Protestant theology. Citing a Protestant scholar is not, itself, an argument. He would have to cite the argument of a Protestant scholar. And that argument would be subject to further examination. All arguments, regardless of their religious pedigree, are subject to further examination.

Take a concrete example. Over at Tblog, another Orthodox apparatchik referred to a claim by Trebolle Barrera that Philo quotes from Sirach and Wisdom. When, however, I turn to the chapter in question, this is what Barrera actually says:

"His [Philo's] works include quotations taken almost exclusively from the Pentateuch, but occasionally also from Ben Sira and Wisdom of Solomon, so going beyond the limits of the third part of the canon, L. McDonald & J. Sanders, eds. The Canon Debate (Hendrickson 2002), 132.

Keep in mind that even if Philo quoted from the Wisdom or Sirach, that doesn't mean he quoted them as Scripture. Moreover, that wouldn't attest other books of the Apocrypha.

However, Barrera doesn't furnish any citations from Philo. Instead he has a footnote (#14) in which he references a chapter that Folker Siegert contributed to a larger anthology, as well as a chapter by Beckwith, in another anthology.

But what do Beckwith and Siegert actually have to say? When I go to the page that Barrera cited, Beckwith doesn't say anything about Philo quoting the Apocrypha. Rather, Beckwith cites Philo on the threefold division of the OT canon according to the Therapeutae. Cf. Mikra, 54f.

So that would document the second half of Barrera's statement (about the third part of the canon), but not the first half, about Philo quoting Wisdom or Sirach.

That also makes me wonder which of the two claims Siegert is cited to attest: the threefold OT canon in Philo, or Philo's quotation of Wisdom and Sirach. Is it possible that Barrera cites Siegert to establish the first claim, and Beckwith to establish the second?

However, in the same book which Barrera references, in citing Beckwith, there is also a chapter on Philo by Yehoshua Amir in which he makes the following statement:

"To find out how Philo employs quotations from Scripture in the Greek texts that have come down to us, we need only consult the Scriptural Index contained in the edition of the text with English translation [i.e. the Loeb edition]. A casual glance at the Index reveals the remarkable fact that while quotations from the Pentateuch alone fill 65 pages, only five pages suffice for the listing of quotations from all other parts of the OT, and there are no quotations whatever from the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha" (422).

So Amir also denies that Philo ever quoted the Apocrypha. But he adds, in a footnote, "The index references to these books refer not to Philo's text, but to Colson's notes" (422n8).

This raises the intriguing possibility that Barrera mistook the editorial references to the Apocrypha for Philonic references to the Apocrypha.

So that leaves Siegert. I decided to write him directly. Here’s the exchange:

Re: [Seite kommentieren] Philo on the Apocrypha
From: Prof. Dr. Folker Siegert
To: hays1999@aol.com
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 5:54 am
Attachment
ijd.vcf
hays1999@aol.com schrieb:
> [URL=Online-E-Mail an Herrn Siegert (Mailback-Formular IJD-Website)]
> [Name=steve hays]
> [Area=n/a]
> [Home=n/a]
> [Addr=hays1999@aol.com]
>
> Dear Dr. Siegert,
>
> I have a question for you if you don’t mind. In his contribution to The Canon Debate, Julio Barrera makes the following statement about Philo: “His works include quotations taken almost exclusively from the Pentateuch, but occasionally also from Ben Sira and Wisdom of Solomon, so going beyond the limits of the third part of the canon.”
>
> Barrera himself doesn’t cite any examples of Philo quoting from Ben Sira and Wisdom. Instead, he documents the claim, in a footnote, by citing something you wrote: “Early Jewish Interpretation in a Hellenistic Style.”
>
*In : M. Saebo (ed.): Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Vol. 1/1, Göttingen 1996, pp. 130-198, esp. p. 176.
But you are right in asking your question: As far as I have checked the references, there are only (possible)) allusions, no quotations.
*
> Is it your position that Philo quotes Ben Sira and Wisdom? >
> If so, does Philo quote them as Scripture? On par with the Torah? > *Surely no. Thank you for asking.*

Yours,
Folker Siegert

*****************************

So the two sources that Barrera footnoted to substantiate his claim about the Apocrypha in fact fail to bear out that claim. That’s why it’s useful to crosscheck our sources.

Continuing with Dyer:

“What Josh and other reformed readers missed was that I was responding to Ian Paisley’s erroneous claims when I was making that point.”

To the contrary, Dyer is attacking a soft target like Paisley because he’s so much easier to knock down than a hard target like Ellis or Beckwith.

“Where is the Old Testament reference to the seven sons who were martyred in testimony to the resurrection?”

I responded to that example. There doesn’t have to be an OT reference. That was a Sadducean illustration. It’s not as if the NT rubberstamps Sadducean theology.

For that matter, even NT statement isn’t a quote or citation or allusion to what someone else said.

“In Sirach 24, we see a powerful prophecy of the Incarnation.”

This is a typical instance of Dyer’s naïveté. What supplies the conceptual background of this passage? There are two theories:

i) ”Part 5 is taken to cover 24:1 to 33:18. It begins with the hymn in praise of wisdom, which may be most appropriately described as an aretalogy, a recital of wonderful characteristics, often in the context of the worship of a particular god or goddess. A number of such aretalogies in praise of the Egyptian goddess Isis have survived (Nickelsburg 1981): 60), an interesting comparison in view of the Egyptian links of Sirach. Some have seen the hymn in Sirach as in effect a ‘retouched’ Isis aretalogy,” R. Coggins, Sirach (Sheffield Academic Press 1998), 30.

ii) Additionally or alternatively, there’s the OT wisdom literature (e.g. Prov 1-9; Job 28). Cf. Coggins, 75-77. D. DeSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha, 164.

So the “prophecy” in Sirach is just a reworking of preexisting literature, whether Biblical or extrabiblical.

“Again, in Baruch 3 we have another amazing prophecy of the Incarnation with remarkable clarity.”

Once again, Dyer betrays the same clueless ignorance of his prooftext’s literary dependence on the OT Wisdom literature: “The Wisdom poem, perhaps the most original part of Baruch, was clearly inspired by Job 28:12-13,23-24. Baruch 3:15-31 descants on the theme of Job 28:12-13…the positive counterpart in Bar. 3:32-4:4 again, takes its starting point from Job 28:23,27,” deSilva, 208.

“We don’t find statements like this in the Masoretic canon of the Old Testament.”

Actually we do (see above).

“This is why many Fathers used these texts and many Jews rejected them: because they lent so much support for Christian theology.”

Once more, why would the Jews suppress messianic prophecy in the Apocrypha while retaining messianic prophecy in the OT?

“But Josh has admittedly not even read the Deuterocanon, yet is prepared to tell us they are not inspired and pagan.”

Dyer has never demonstrated the least acquaintance with the standard scholarship on the Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. I’m the one who’s been citing that material throughout this debate.

“Did these reformed masters not know what their Protestant masters teach?”

We don’t have any Protestant “masters.”

“Why does F.F. Bruce say, ‘the Book of Wisdom was possibly in Paul’s mind as he dictated the first two chapters of Romans’ (The Canon of Scripture, 51)?”

Let’s compare this with Bruce’s full statement:

“The book of Wisdom was possibly in Paul’s mind as he dictated part of the first two chapters of Romans, but that would not give it scriptural status: if he does allude to it, he probably contradicts it here and there.”

By only quoting the first part of Bruce’s sentence, Dyer tries to create the false impression in the mind of a reader (who doesn’t have access to Bruce’s book) that Bruce is endorsing Dyer’s contention, when, in fact, Bruce explicitly takes the opposite position—if you read the entire sentence.

What a splendid example of Dyer’s “honest scrutiny.”

“But beyond all this, the rabid reformers have consistently ignored one of my stronger points: that we have no direct knowledge of apostolic authorship of various NT texts apart from patristic tradition!”

i) Another bald-faced lie. I specifically responded to that argument by referring Dyer to Hengel’s discussion of the Gospel titles. Quoting a few scholars from dated, popular reference works is no way to engage Hengel.

ii) Moreover, as I (and others) have said umpteen times, there’s a difference between citing a church father as an authority-figure, and citing him as a historical witness.

“I included this quote since in continual annoyance, opponents have insisted that Liturgy didn’t have anything to do with canonicity.”

A straw man argument. Lectionaries can bear witness to the canon. But that’s just one piece of evidence, and it needs to be sifted in time and place.

“F.F. Bruce admits this, when speaking of the Oral Tradition:’These quotations [from early Fathers] do not amount to evidence for a NT canon; they do show that the authority of the Lord and His apostles was not reckoned to be inferior to that of the law and prophets. Authority precedes canonicity; had the words of the Lord and His apostles not been accorded supreme authority, their written words would never have been canonized’ (The Canon of Scripture, pg. 123). Well, there you have it. One of the top Protestant NT scholars of the last century admits the very thing non-Protestants have been saying all along: authority precedes canonicity and Oral Tradition is necessary.”

Once again he deliberately misrepresents Bruce’s actual position. For if you continue down the very same page, Bruce goes on to say that:

“In a society like the Graeco-Roman world of the early Christian centuries, where writing was the regular means of preserving and transmitting material deemed worth of remembrance, the idea of relying on oral tradition for the recording of the deeds and words of Jesus and the apostles would not have generally commended itself (whatever Papias and some others might think).

Yet another example of Dyer’s “honest scrutiny.”

“My challenge to Protestants would be to read Bruce’s The Canon of Scripture with an open and honest mind, and then explain how they can remain Protestants, in good conscience.”

Aside from Dyer’s calculated distortion of Bruce’s real position, I’ve never said that the case for the canon rises or falls on external attestation alone—which is the focal point of Bruce’s fine monograph.

“But back to the point; St. Athanasius lists a canon that no one follows, as do many Church Fathers. In fact, in Lee MacDonald’s work, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon, an entire appendix (pgs. 268-276) is devoted to differing canons of various Fathers and councils. St. Athanasius leaves out Esther and includes Baruch.”

He’s blurring the distinction between patristic testimony to the OT canon and patristic testimony to the NT. Generally speaking, Evangelicals don’t look to the church fathers for historical testimony regarding the scope of the OT canon—except in those cases where a few church fathers were in touch with Jewish sources. We wouldn’t look to Athanasius for information on Esther. Jewish sources would be our first line of recourse. Cf. R. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, 290: D. Clines, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (Eerdmans 1992), 254-56.

“Protestant Liturgical Scholar, Geoffrey Wainwright, writes in his Oxford Press work on Liturgical theology as follows: ‘Form-criticism has helped us see that many of the pericopes now included in the Gospels had already been used in the earliest preaching of the Church. This broadly liturgical character of the New Testament material means that there is a fundamental identity of purpose between the ‘oldest collection of sermons’ which acquired scriptural status and the Church’s subsequent preaching in its worship’.”

Of course, form criticism assumes that orality precedes textuality—an assumption that’s been challenged by writers like Alan Millard and Maurice Casey.

“Josh has not studied the formation of the canon in-depth, and honest people who do so often do not remain Protestant long.”

i) Well, that creates another conundrum for Dyer. For he’s been citing Protestant scholars like Bruce and McDonald on the canon of Scripture. But, to judge by what he just said, they don’t count as honest scholars. So how can Dyer cite dishonest scholars to prove his point?

ii) I also curious about how Dyer defines “long.” Metzger was a premier Protestant canonist who died at the age of 93, while Zahn was a premier Protestant canonist who died at the age of 95. I guess if only they’ve lived a wee bit longer, they would have abandoned their Protestant theology for the smells and bells of Constantinople.

“No, the Church determines her OT books as well as her NT books, and she alone is competent to do so: not the Jew, not the heretic, and not the academic.”

Which church? The Orthodox church? But Dyer never made case for the Orthodox church. And the Orthodox church never determined the OT canon. So his claim is self-refuting.

I’d add that given his penchant for crackpot conspiracy theories, it’s odd that Dyer is so trusting when it comes to church history. Logically, Dyer’s scepticism about the political establishment dovetails with Bart Ehrman’s scepticism about the ecclesiastical establishment, viz. The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament; Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. How can Dyer be so distrustful of the American government when he’s so trustful of the Holy Roman Emperor?

“First Century Judaism is terribly complex, and consisted of converts and racial descendents from many nations and of various traditions.”

True, 1C Judaism wasn’t monolithic. Does Dyer think that Orthodox church history is monolithic? Dyer has swapped one historical complexity for another.